Hope Solo, Wambach, others want a new pro league

There are a lot of obstacles here, obviously, and one of the big ones is a lack of depth. Unless they can figure our a way to have Hope Solo, Abby Wambach, Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe play for every single team in the league, they're screwed.

 

Right. When the first league started, if Hamm or Chastain were playing, there was a decent draw. If they weren't, nobody came. I can see Solo and Wambach having some drawing power, and maybe the other two aforementioned players, but there's not enough for a league.

 

They've taken two runs at it. The first was very well-funded (founder of the Discovery Channel was the main source), on the heels of the sport's great explosion and with very recognizable names and faces. It failed. The second was a much more modest endeavor playing at local high schools and paying players next to nothing. It failed.

I don't know where the middle-ground solution is to overcome that history, but it seems like they've tried both sides of it and found that the one key ingredient they are missing is customers.

 

Re: Hope Solo, Wambaugh, others want a new pro league

Several MLS clubs do have women's teams entered in the USL-run W-League. I believe Alex Morgan, Hope Solo and Megan Rapinoe all play for the Seattle Sounders women. Truth be told, this is bare bones semi-pro and the Sounders main club probably only has minimal financial stake in it. For right now, it's something. If they were smart, they should be trying to seek investment in that established league to help maintain it rather than seeking out MagicJack crazy owner part II.

If they're in need of a (slightly) bigger check, head to Europe or Asia. There's growing investment in the women's game elsewhere and it's expected to rise because of the improving quality in the big international tournaments.

My personal crazy idea would be to form a US league based on regions. One team each for say the Pacific Northwest, Great Lakes, New England...etc. The players on those respective teams must have been born in those regions. You create territorial tension this way which in some sense mimics the international game. No home stadiums either. They can play wherever they want in the respective regions. Ten to 15 games per year, tops.

 

You are probably right. I'm letting Hope Solo cloud my judgment.

 

The other problem is most of the members of the Olympic team expect to make a decent wage. I covered the 1996 gold medal game and I was wrapped up enough in it that if you asked me at the time if I thought people would line up to see that team across the country, I would have said an emphatic yes.

People would have lined up to see that team or this team. They just won't line up to see two of them and a bunch of top college or foreign players play against two more of them and even more college or foreign players.

 

I understand WPS had many many issues, but it's telling they couldn't hold on to this year to at least get the residual buzz from the expected uptick in interest following the Olympics. It's like the newspaper in Detroit that stopped publishing a few days after it started, hoping it would come back in January to better ad sales than the ones they would have gotten in that known no man's land of advertising, the holiday season.

Good for them if they can get another league going, but recent history has not been kind in the least.

 

There is a woman's league in England. They should play there. It's what the men did prior to the MLS (and what the best men still do).

http://www.fawsl.com/index.html

 

The WNBA is on life support and will probably be dead within 2-3 seasons.

 

From that link, there are two action photos on the front page of revolving photos - you cannot find a fan in the sea of empties behind the players in either.

 

The only way to cash in the current team would be to barnstorm the USWNT city to city against teams of world all-stars. You might make some money. Might.

 

There seems to be little correlation this side of the pond, either. There were close to 80,000 for the 1996 gold medal game, and two leagues have failed since then. I agree that they deserve a place to play, but it seems unlikely.